Mandated to Live Holy

Mandated to Live Holy

Juanita N. Stallings

Largo, MD

Copyright © 2017 Juanita N. Stallings

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ISBN Paperback 9781562293505

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Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible. Scripture quotations marked AMPC are taken from the Amplified Bible®, Copyright© 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), Copyright© 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®, Copyright©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc® Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible® (NASB), Copyright© 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973,1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. Scripture quotations marked (NKJV) are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright© 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, Copyright© 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1 – Holiness

Chapter 2 – Knowing Who We Really Are

Chapter 3 –- Guarding Your Mind

Chapter 4 – Guarding Your Heart

Chapter 5 – Guarding Your Body

Chapter 6 – Guarding Your Soul

Chapter 7 – Guarding Your Spirit

Chapter 8 – The Defeat of satan

Chapter 9 – Be Ye Holy for God Is Holy

Chapter 10 – Promises to God’s Children

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Introduction

The purpose of this book is to draw God’s people back to their rightful place with Him. It’s to help them understand the challenges experienced in life and how they can use them to make a difference. Moreover, the contents have been penned to encourage believers to stop running from who they are in the Lord. Have you attempted to disqualify yourself from being the person God has called you to be? Have you done horrible things in your quest to escape God’s will? It’s time to stop and embrace your unique, authentic self and allow God to live in you so the world can experience the fullness of life because of your existence.

For those who currently have no idea who they really are and are searching for their identity, my prayer is, you will truly come to the knowledge of who you are and who the Enemy is. Most importantly you will discover and experience God. Perhaps, you had such knowledge before but you were tricked out of believing and living it. Alternatively, your main concern and purpose in life may be to fit in and be normal, instead of being who God called you to be. If you have found yourself in one of these categories. I want to expose the Enemy, his tricks, and tactics that keep you from your true identity which is intended to lead you to your destiny. On the other hand, if you are conscious of your God- given identity, have accepted it and you are holding on by faith, this book will encourage you on your Christian journey and rouse you to fulfill your God-given purpose.

Be ignorant no more! As you read the pages of this book you will forgive and be forgiven; you will be delivered and set free. Discover and embrace who God really called you to be and live it out to the fullest with no apologies.

Chapter 1

Holiness

Perhaps, you’re wondering who I am and what gives me the right to write a book on holiness. Well, I am a young woman of God who knew from an early age that I was called to live holy. However, I had no idea how to do it. I am talking about genuinely living holy, not just appearing to be holy. I was frustrated because I knew how I was supposed to live but I did not know how. Consequently, I experienced several mishaps on my Christian journey. Those mistakes taught me many valuable lessons, which have led to my success on the rest of my Christian journey; I simply desire to share them with you.

My prayer is that my experiences and life lessons will help others who know they have been called to live holy – and even those who don’t know this very call is on their lives – to live holy. Maybe, you don’t know what holiness is or you just don’t understand how to successfully live this lifestyle. I want to help you live as God has called you to. Living holy is not to be done as a chore, duty or obligation but with exceeding joy and happiness. I decided to share with you what I know in good faith. It will help you to live a life of holiness as God intended on your Christian journey.

It always seemed as if I was set apart from the day I was born. I was different. In every group (the majority) and situation, although I found my place, I could always tell that I was different. There was always a distinct difference between me and everyone else in the group or between my situation and their situations. The one thing that I learned was none of these instances were by coincidence. God purposely allowed me to see and feel the contrast between me and everyone else; we are all different. However, God was trying to show me at such a young age that being different was nothing to feel bad, uncomfortable or ashamed of. Far from that, my differentness was unique and was a strength that would help me discover and understand how I differed from the world, my likeness to God, my Father, and His role in my life.

Here’s a brief insight of me and where I came from to give you a clearer understanding of what I’m talking about. I have a large family. My mom is one of nine children; her mom is one of ten. Her dad is one of twenty-three. I grew up around family. All of my uncles and aunts were married for as long as I can remember; they all seemed happy and blessed.

However, my mom and dad separated when I was seven and got divorced when I was about ten or eleven. My older brother is the first grandchild on both sides of our family (I never got the chance to meet my grandfather on my father’s side; he passed away when my father was 14). I was the first granddaughter on my mom’s side and the only granddaughter on my father’s side. Needless to say, my brother and I were like the experiment kids. We made the first mistakes and failures and learned the hard way so to speak because we didn’t have anybody to learn from. That is, other than our friends who were from an entirely different world and upbringing.

All of my cousins had their moms and dads living at home. Like I said earlier, they appeared to have the ideal family unit. This was the first aspect of my life that made me different. My parents’ divorce made me feel like an outcast because my home was no longer what I knew the ideal home to be. It was no longer what I’d seen and once lived before my parents’ divorced. From very early, I felt like I had nobody who could relate to me; there was no one to talk to about my situation and life in general. Yes, even as a child, it’s important to have someone to talk to about your feelings and what’s going on with you. Some people may think what a child is dealing with is trivial and unimportant but it’s a big matter to the child. It can have lifelong effects. What I know now, but didn’t know then is that the Lord was trying to teach me to look to Him for guidance, counsel, comfort, love, and everything that I needed.

For a child is born to us, a son is given to us. The government will rest on his shoulders. And he will be called: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9:6 NLT)

I didn’t know who I was or why I was here; my life was so different. Nevertheless, it seemed like all of the elders I came in contact with knew exactly who I was. From as early as I can remember it felt like there wasn’t a church service I was in that I didn’t receive a word of prophecy about who I was or what I was going to be. I will not assume that everyone reading this has a religious background or that you’re familiar with religious terms. For the benefit of those who may not know, a word of prophecy or a prophetic word is the foretelling or prediction of what is to come (Dictionary.com). I like to say it’s a forth telling of what is to come. The difference between a prophetic word and a psychic’s prediction is that a prophetic word generates from God and or a person being used by God to speak for God; it’s a foreshadow of your future. However, a psychic’s prediction is just that; a prediction from a person or witch being used by Satan (whether the person being used knows it or not).

At first, these prophecies felt good. On hearing them, I thought: Wow, the Lord is going to do that through me. The Lord is going to give me that. Wow, that’s the life I’m going to live. I’m so special. Again, I felt good about these prophecies in the beginning. But when I realized that there would be many, many years before I would see anything close to them coming to pass, the prophecies got more and more annoying. Trying to live holy and waiting on God became more difficult. It felt like I was the only one attempting to live holy. As a matter of fact, it appeared that all of the normal people around me were happy and blessed while nothing was happening for me. I wanted to be normal. Living holy was too hard. What I didn’t realize then but do now is that it wasn’t that living holy was too hard. The reality was that living holy in this world is; living separated from this world (that to me at the time felt lonely) and because I didn’t know how to deal with the feeling of loneliness, made it seem hard.

What elluded me, like many others, was my perception of the blessed life. I thought that having material things and people in my life equated to being blessed. In my mind, having money, fine clothes, gadgets, what appeared to be the American dream, immediate family and things of that nature would make me happy. Now, don’t misunderstand me; I had everything I needed – food, clothes, and shelter. However, I didn’t have the luxury of having most of the things I wanted. I longed for parents with enough money to buy me stuff and the ideal immediate family, which was lacking after my parents got divorced. As I matured, I discovered that while those things are blessings, not having them doesn’t exactly disqualify you from being blessed.

But blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have made the Lord their hope and confidence. They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green, and they never stop producing fruit. (Jeremiah 17:7-8 NLT)

In ignorance because my life was set up differently, I was forced to be blessed! What do I mean? I didn’t have a lot of money growing up, and my American dream immediate family was taken from me at a young age. Consequently, the lack of those things led me to know God the way I do now. I had no choice but to trust and put all of my hope in Him instead of in money, material things or even family. Would I have the foundational relationship with God that I have now had I not had this childhood experience? I don’t know. What I do know is that I’m forever grateful that I developed this relationship. Sometimes, when we look at ourselves in comparison to others, we tend to focus on what others have over us. We really shouldn’t look at it that way. God made us all different; He made our situations different as well. God knows exactly what He’s doing. Our differences are meant to set us apart, not to make us feel abandoned. They actually show us our likeness to God and the authenticity of ourselves.

Our differences cause us to stand out from the majority. They bring to light what the majority is missing, which can only be identified when we allow our uniqueness to show. In other words, if we try to blend in with the majority, instead of standing out, we will hide the very thing that the majority needs. The differences we possess are assets, not liabilities or things to be ashamed of. When we embrace our uniqueness as the light that draws others, we will permit ourselves to be who we really are in Christ.

Therefore, come out from among unbelievers, and separate yourselves from them, says the Lord. Don’t touch their filthy things, and I will welcome you. And I will be your Father, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty. (2